Tag: Arts

Henry is dilligently working to get the Sanctuary network back together when he receives a call from a colleague who is working on the rehabilitation of a otherwise wild abnormal. Something bad happens to her while they are on the phone and Henry rushes out to the scene with the rest of the team. Obviously driven by very strong feelings, Henry collects evidence and wipes the area of traces of the work completed their to shield the information from police. Then the race is on to save his friend.

For the most part, this episode was about a love triangle Henry was caught up in. Sure, there was some business with an abnormal that shot spores out of its body, but Henry was the center of the show.

There were a bunch of cool tech shots when Henry brought out a 3-D imager which was pretty awesome, but most of it was just heavy conversation, even in the case of the sign language chat Henry had with the abnormal.

I have stated blatantly before that Henry is the main reason I watch this show. Ryan Robbins does a terrific job with this episode. Now if only he can pull some of his coworkers aside and give them a few pointers, everything would be fantastic.

So the first thing Will is going to do in a time of crisis, is grow a mullet. Duly noted.

As the scene fades in we see Magnus confused and on the floor in the Sanctuary. She wanders around for a bit and we get to see some decent CG of the decimated area around her. She arms herself and sets out to find out what is going on in an opening which made me whine to my friend, “But I have already seen the second Resident Evil movie.” Next we are shown a non-zombie abnormal with that Alien-esque second mouth thing going.

We do get treated with a horribly awkward forced shower scene with Amanda Tapping. Not what the fanboys were envisioning at all. We are also treated with Will’s mullet.

Mullets irk me.

It was almost as distracting as Will trying to look badass but instead portraying constipated. The whole episode, I just wanted someone to lead him to a bathroom and hand him a laxative and a book. I didn’t even notice the dead eye contacts because of that horrible mullet. My friend tried to discount it as lack of salons and product, but mullets don’t just happen. It might have been some Metal Gear Solid homage or something, but it was PAINFUL.

Mullet rant aside, I enjoyed the episode even though very little happened in relation to the main story. I was annoyed at the line about Will and Kate having a kid, because they have absolutely NO chemistry. Well, that and his take on badass is a dude with a mullet that looks constipated. I did miss the lack of Henry in this episode, but I understand the folks in charge trying to focus an episode on the leads. It did give Amanda Tapping time to do her thing and remind us why we like her. Unfortunately it also reminded us that/why Robin Dunne was in that crappy Cruel Intentions sequel/prequel/jacked-up-the-storyline mess.

The comic book geek in me was excited to see this episode, finally an abnormal who wanted to go out and be a superhero.

The episode kicks off with a sort of lame motorcycle chase which is brightened up by the hero saving a fleeing abnormal from the “bad guys”. As it turns out it was Will and Declan [the British dude we will probably not see again for some time considering I couldn’t remember his name until I looked it up.] Will and Magnus track the guy down and ask him a few questions, all the while him saying they are supervillians.

We are treated with a sideplot of Kate dealing with a mess her brother made. Sans Henry she is just not as interesting, it is sad to say, but at least she still cute to pad the blow. Henry is caught up with “The Adjuster” for good reason, he is also a bit of a comic book geek. I totally called the origins of the suit 10 minutes into the show, but I still enjoyed the reveal, and the effects it entailed weren’t all that bad. This show did way better justice to the symbiote than the Sam Raimi did in the-movie-that-must-not-be-named.

Will doesn’t wear glasses anymore, is it because of the Daniel Jackson jokes last season?

Will has a chat with the hero, and comes out to talk to Henry. As Will was relaying the backstory he was given, I thought it was hilarious that it was the juggernaut origin and that Henry thought it was funny too. The geek in me was pleased. More comic book goodness was displayed in other places in the episode, but it is best left watched and not just read.

Ok, so I have finally narrowed down what is bugging me the most aboutSanctuary. It’s not so much just the pacing as it is that the writers seem to think they are working on a half hour series and no one has informed them that they need 42 minutes of material instead of 22. Since the sprinkling of plot on top of visuals has helped the show work its way into a second season, lets hope they either cut the runtime in half or write the stories to fit the timeslot.

This story of a savant with the ability to print out scenes like a computer, combined with a mysterious death, should have been simple to work with. Plenty of other shows make these plots work every week, on multiple channels. The tale started out intriguing, but they managed to make the reveal seem like pulling teeth. The main problem with this little adventure is that it felt like a sideplot to the continuation of the fleshing out of Henry which was accidentally placed as the main plot. The positive side to that is even though Henry’s decision to not have the surgery was destined, they spent enough time boring the viewer with the main story as not to suck the intrigue out of Henry’s time onscreen. Although it seemed to take forever for it to arrive, the scene with Henry, Edward, and his brother at the end was worth the wait. Its just a shame a great deal of the rest of the episode made the wait painful.

Being fairly predictable did not hurt this episode as much as the pacing did. The storyline idled enough to where the viewer could miss the vindication of the father in the case, and not really care to go back and watch again. With all the time allotted to forgettable chatter, more time could have been spent focusing on the interference of the Cabal, instead of having it being relegated to the conversation with Kavanaugh toward the ending. The acting in this vignette was the draw, with all the actors doing a considerably good job, its just too bad they weren’t given a full hours worth of material.

Sanctuary: An original web based show turned primetime. Stars Amanda Tapping as Helen Magnus, scientist studying the extreme and Robin Dunne as Zimmerman the psychologist who people say sees too much.

This show was beginning to come into its own with its exploration of how the abnormals deal with the rest of society, when they decided to come up with the token “accident in the middle of nowhere” story. In this case it was a plane crash. We began the show with a flashback of John and Magnus which was fairly cute and Helen awakens in the wreckage of the accident. I’ll be honest with whoever reads this, I kept falling asleep trying to watch this episode both times I tried. First thing Magnus does is phone home, but that leads to nothing since they need to be stranded for 44 minutes. The victims argue and do the we’re stuck thing. It gets somewhat interesting when a freshly escaped creature they were toting starts taking out the passengers that might as well have worn red shirts. When I say somewhat, I mean it.

For the most part it was pretty much a dime a dozen horror story until the aspect of the monster being able to alter the perceptions of the survivors was introduced. This development brought intrigue into the situation for a short while since the main characters are supposed to be prided on their intellect. The most painful part of the realization was the fact that after the “don’t split up” conversation, Will was convincingly tricked into the fake rescue sequence, and spent entirely too much time talking to his imaginary mother. It is understandable why they chose to have that scene in an effort to show Magnus detecting the monster in his Will disguise, but it was a bit of a stretch. I was annoyed that they took out the weapons guy though. Maybe next week we won’t get a not as good rehash of a Doctor Who episode (this screamed “Midnight” -lite.)

You are forced to learn a lot about yourself when there is no TV, internet, or video games to distract you. Faced with nothing but natural light, you find out quickly if you have natural survival skills. Some people master the outdoors with no problem, others stumble without their luxuries.

As much time as I spend on the internet, it was evident fairly quickly that if all hell breaks loose in the world I could get along for a fair bit of time. I’m kind of proud of myself for not losing my mind or just sleeping through the week. My neighbors were not faring as well.

I’m just glad that when our robot overlords take over, I might have a chance at hiding out in the woods.